president obama said a deal is in sight to stop america going over the so-called fiscal cliff. congress officials have said the house of representatives will not vote before midnight despite tense negotiations to get an agreement signed before midnight washington time. that will trigger a series of automatic spending cuts and tax hikes and could send the country back into recession. >> of america is staring into the economic unknown. there will be some real damage. there are some people deserving far better and we will be scrambling to find budget reductions in we can understand. >> we are upon the fiscal cliff. will we need to focus on is how we find that common ground. ira by -- i believe republicans and democrats alike want to put us on the course to fiscal discipline. >> we are running at a time. americans are threatened with a tax hike in just few hours. i hope we can keep in mind that our single most important goal is to protect middle-class families. >> democrats and republicans in congress have to get this done but they are not there yet. they are closed but not there y